FredaUtley.com
TRADE GUILDS OF THE LATTER ROMAN EMPIRE
by Freda Utley (MA Thesis at the London School of Economics, 1925)
(Retyped from old manuscript--footnotes deleted after first section)
C H A P T E R VI
P I S T O R E S
In so far as the annona was concerned the collegium of greatest
importance, next to the navicularii, was that of the pistores - bakers and millers. This
collegium had long existed but only became important at Rome when daily distributions of
bread took the place of monthly distributions of corn. Even so it was not of great
antiquity; Pliny the Elder states that the trade of baker was only introduced at Rome
about 171 B.C. because before that date women and slaves made the bread. In rich families
bread was still made at home by slaves in the time of Plautus and many inscriptions of
such slaves have been found. Under the Republic the Aediles made contracts with the bakers
to ensure that supplies of good bread at a low price were sold to the people. The Emperors
encouraged the bakers trade and Trajan seems to have formed them into a collegium or at
any rate to have "consolidated" their collegium. Probably Trajan arranged its
connection with the annona and established its privileges. Osins and Ulpien speak of the
bakers' privileges as given by Trajan. In 144 A.D. the corpus pistorum at Rome put up a
statue to Hadrian. Waltzing also shows that the position of the bakers in the 2nd century
was much the same as that of the navicularii: not the whole corpus but the individual
members had dealings with the government and some of the members of the corpus were not
bakers and had no privileges. Gains and Ulpian show that to receive privileges members
must themselves carry on the trade i.e. mill and have cooked at least 100 modii of corn a
day and be on a list made out by the administration of the annona. Paul shows that the
position was the same at the beginning of the 3rd century. Up to this time the bakers were
only occupied in furnishing the public with good cheap bread and they were probably able
to buy corn cheaply from the government stores for this purpose. The state was thus sure
of the supply of such bread and the whole supply was supervised by the prefect of the
annona. The Emperor addresses his decrees to the latter and his name is found on the
inscriptions of the pistores, as their patron. When daily distributions of bread took the
place of monthly distributions of corn in the period between Alexander Severus and
Aurelian, the corporation of bakers suddenly assumed immense importance and in time came
entirely under state control seeing that it was indispensable to the annona. Far more
bakers were needed and the state had to contract with them to have the corn milled and the
bread made. It is at Rome that we know most about them but Constantine endowed
Constantinople with the same largesses as old Rome and the corporation of bakers in both
capitals assumed its pecular and important character. Symmachus calls them in the 4th
century pistores publicae annonae which shows their official character, and in the
Theodosian code there is mention of --- per quam utilitati annonae publicae providetur.
It does not appear that any actual payments were made to the pistores
for baking the public bread. They were however compensated to some extent in other ways.
They were provided by the state with the "pistrina" where they worked and they
could buy cheap corn to make bread for sale apart from the bread which they made for the
free distributions. The pistrina were not only bakehouses where the bread was kneaded and
baked; they were also establishments where the grain itself was turned into flour i.e.
they were both mills and bakehouses. The question as to when watermills were introduced
into Rome and how far they came into general use is one of some difficulty. They were used
in Pontus in the days of ---- dates and were subsequently well known in Italy. The centre
of the breadmaking trqade is said to have been in the ------ region by Daremberg et Saglio
although the forum pistelium was on the other side of the river. Palladius, in the 4th
century according to the same authority, recommends their use to economics ----- and
animal effort.
On the monument of Eurysoces in the first century B.C. pictures are
shown of grain being milled by human labour and the inscription of the pictures to ----,
already mentioned, has a picture of ----- full of corn on the side and of a hand or arm
mill on the other.
In the Theodosian Code no mention of the millers as distinct from the
pistores in --------- till the year 398 A.D. when Honorius indignantly refuses the
positions of certain people who have dared to ask for conduit pipes of the waters of the
Mills which supply important provisions to the venerable city.
The only inscription relating to the millers (molendinarii) dates from
the year 405 and to an edict of the prefect of the City prohibiting the use of false
weights and measures by the millers and fixing their salary at 3 numes per modium.
Mills are still referred to as part of the normal equipment of a
bakehouse in 364 or 367 A.D. and the fact that the patrons are told to hand the bakehouses
over intact to their successors with the mills and other equipment proves that they were
not water mills; water mills could not well have been moved and no special injunction
would have been necessary. Furthermore the bakehouses were not all in one part of the
city.
All the evidence seems to point to the fact that, however long before
water mills may have been known and used elsewhere, they were not in general use at Rome
till well on in the 4th century. Waltzing quotes Marquandt to show that they were not
introduced till the 4th century and that when introduced they were set up at Rome at the
food of the Mons Jeniculum, and worked by the aquaduct which passed over that hill. He
does not consider the question of how long water mills had been known and used elsewhere.
As however he is fairly certain that the molendarii did not exist as Rome before the late
4th century and as the only evidence available is of a date beyond the period of this
study they may be dismissed. The pistores dealt with in this chapter are both millers and
bakers though it is possible that a few of the bakehouses had watermills attached in place
of mills worked by slaves and animals.
The work done in the pistrina
was therefore mainly the milling and sifting of the grain, the kneading and the baking of
the bread. Two sorts of bread were made: the panis graddis for free distribution and the
panis fiscalis or Ostiensis for sale to the people at cheap prices.
The bakers were responsible for the distribution of the one as for the
sale of the other; the whole question of the procedure and regulations for the free
distributions of bread etc. has been dealt with in Chapter III.
---- are only concerned with it from the point of view of the bakers
themselves. They received the grain for the free bread --- from the keepers of the state
granaries where the "canon frumentarius" was stored and it is expressly stated
that the canon frumentarius is to be delivered entire to the bakers. Indeed the bakers
were responsible for any thefts made from these storehouses "on them the whole blame
of the crime was laid"; if it could not be paid back in kind the falue of the theft
had to be made good in any ---- in bronze or lead or any other payment.
For the manis fiscalis or Ostiensis the bakers received their grain at
a cheap price from the patrons of the caudicarii and the mansores. It is decreed that the
grain supplied is to be good and unspoilt and for Rome at any rate the amount is specified
in 364 i.e. 200,000 modii "in accordance with the ancient custom". It is however
true that the last words quoted may only refer to the supply not to the quantity.
Presumably the bakers made a decent profit on this latter bread else it is difficult to
see how they can have lived at all. But it must also be noted that the pistina provided by
the government for the use of the bakers were not mere workshops with mills ovens and ---
instruments for breadmaking, they were also equipped with animals and slaves and even
endowed lands . In fact the pistrimma was in reality a fully equipped ------ with funds of
its own and animal and human ----- to perform the hard labor. The words sometimes used for
a baker and for the bakehouse i.e. ------ and ----- seem to imply that originally the
bakers and the --------- state in these pistrina. The word ----- may mean baker simply or
may mean a patron of the bakers, but in any case it seems to imply the original renting of
pistrina by bakers or their patrons. Mancipes of the ----- and salt depots are also met
with.
The important point is that the bakehouses being provided with
"instrumenti" in the shape of machines, animals and slaves, and further being
endowed with lands or other properties, must not only have provided for their own expenses
but also have enjoyed a revenue from endowments which might in part compensate with
pistores for their labours. That the government did regard the income from these endowed
lands as some sort of compensation for the bakers we can see from Th. XIV.8.19. in which
they are referred to as lands"ques comum componi solacis cert a preabebant". The
government also took care that the supply of labour in the pistrina was kept up.
Although 15 decrees relate to the privileges of the navicularii there
are none relating to those of the bakers. One law, it is true, condemns to service in the
bakeries any man or official who shall injure a baker by secret fraud but all the others
relate to the regulations for keeping bakers and their heirs at their work, to their
property and to the recruiting of new bakers. Thus althoughj next in importance to the
navicularii the pistores were in a far less enviable position and many of them tried to
escapt from their ----- calling. The only privileges they received were ------ those
"which on account of reverence for the eternal city humanity has favoured various
corporations of men by the authority either of ancient laws or of previous princes . . .
." i.e. they enjoyed the same privileges as various other corporations of the city of
Rome. It must of course be remembered that the inhabitants of Rome paid little in the
shape of taxation and that, since the central government administers local affairs, there
were no local expenses to pay for as in the Municipalities. What were the privileges of
the corporations of Rome mentioned above is not precisely known, but a summary has been
given at the beginning of Part I.
The taxes and duties from which the navicularii are exempted are mainly
those which would fall on them as men whose property made them liable to curial service in
the Municipalities and these of course would not touch the pistores at Rome. From munera
sordida et extra ordinaris the pistores like the other corpora at Rome, were exempt. Nor
would the pistores be concerned with custom duties. Lastly it must be emphasised that the
navicularii, situated all over the Empire as they were, would have been subject to
vexations and exactions from all sorts of officials, vexations and exactions which would
never befall the pistores who were resident at Rome; therefore little special legislation
was needed to safeguard the latter. There is however one decree of late date which deals
specially with the safeguarding of the bakers' interests. Any public servant (apparitor)
belonging to the suite of the illustrious prefect of the city or of the prefect of the
annona, who shall injure a baker by secret fraud, when accused and convicted is to become
a hereditary baker.
The bakers were bound to their work by much stricter regulations than
the navicularii, or indeed, than the members of any other collegia.
Their hereditary liability to the "bread making function" was
a strictly personal one. One might have imagined that they were only compelled to provide
for the expenses of the service without themselves exercising the trade. But instead of
this the laws refer constantly to the baker's person being "pistrini consortio
obnoxius" or "obnoxius functioni". A baker did not excape from his
connection with a bakehouse if he lost his property. If anyone transferred his possessions
to others, "in order that after he had collected his property into a hiding place, he
might show himself unfit and should think another would have to be enrolled in his place,
he is to get no profit from his disimulation". He is to remain obliged to perform the
duty of a baker without any excuse nor is he to recover his lost possessions. Presumably,
having lost his property such a pistor would be complelled to serve in the bakehouse in
some menial capacity and would bitterly regret his attempt to escape from his duties.
If a man married the daughter of a baker and tried to break her
connection with the collegium of bakers by dissipating her fortune he himself became a
member of the collegium and had to work as a baker just as if he were one by his origin.
With one exception a baker could never become free of his obligations.
The exception is the case of those wealthy pistores who became senators. These have to
choose between their property and the dignity offered them. If they choose to become
senators they must first enrol relatives fitted to be pistores by the possession of
property equal in amount to that which they themselves possessed when they were bakers.
Thus the prospective Senator lost his property to the corporation of bakers and a new
member with the same amount of property, took his place; the corporation therefore
increased its resources. It would howeverr seem impossible for the ex-baker to have lived
as a Senator without his property; it would only be possible for those appointed to high
positions in the civil service who would be able to accept; offices such as Aedile
carrying no pay but involving heavy expenditure would be impossible of acceptance.
Apart from this one case it was impossible for a baker ever to get free
of his bakehouse. Valentinian decreed that he might not even enter the Church. If he has
done so he is to be recalled to the company of bakers "the privilege of Christianity
being taken from him."
Even the patrons of the
bakers are never to be called away to perform other functions "so that free from all
necessities they may perform their own duty with the energies of a free mind."
However the first of the patrons are to be free from their obligations after five years
service as such.
No one is to leave the corporation under any pretext even if all the
bakers want him to be released and he seems to deserve it. The prefect of the city is
advised to be on the lookout that none may escape in this manner.
Not only are the relatives of bakers who succeed to this property
forced to serve in the bakehouses. After 403 anyone who marries the daughter of a baker is
to become a member of their corporation and is to submit to their 'onera'. In 372
Valentinian had already decreed that if a man married to a baker's daughter who dissipated
his wife's property he was to become a baker. Thus the government provided that the
"public necessity" should be served even if a baker had no son to take his place
after death; a son-in-law would do just as well.
In 403 Honorius even forbade the bakers to marry whom they pleased.
Neither they nor their children might marry private persons or actresses or those
connected with charioteering, even though all the bakers agreed to the marriage and the
imperial rescript had been procured by underhand means. If anyone did so he was to be
scourged and deported and his possessions attached to a bakery. If the Prefect of the
annona did not discover the marriage before it took place a fine of 10 lbs. was to be
imposed on each family in such a way that "eae quoque personae cum patrimonio ad
debitum officium revocentur quae per hujusmodi nuptias in simili consortio fuerunt."
The decree concludes by saying that all who have chosen the daughters of bakers in
marriage, either belonging themselves to the actors or charioteers or to any private
station are to be attached to the corporation of bakers.
If this law means that bakers were to marry no one but bakers why does
it specially mention Actresses and charioteers after private persons? Yet if not, why are
private persons forbidden, seeing that marriage with such would obviously be less harmful
to the public interest than marriage to the daughters of members of other collegia and
would increase the number of bakers by making such private persons into bakers? Surely it
was preferable that the daughters of bakers whould marry private persons rather than
members of other collegia or corporations. This point is very obscure and needs further
investigation. The law is usually taken to mean that bakers could not marry outside their
collegium at all.
Before dealing with the general question of the recruitment of the
pistores it will be well to consider the hereditary and inalienable character of their
possessions. First it is important to distinguish between the individual properties of
individual bakers and those endowed properties (fundis dotalibus) which were part of the
equipment of a pistrina.
The endowed lands were obviously not the property of the bakers
themselves and were absolutely inalienable and indivisible. Not only this, but the
government even saw to it that the rents from such endowed lands and farms were not lost
to the corporation of bakers by fraud. In 396 Honorius to prevent individual piatores from
takeing the profits of these lands themselves to the hurt of the corporation, commands
that in future a trustworthy man is to be sent out to survey such lands "as are under
obligation to the corporation of bakers" and to see that the rents are paid and that
such profits from the property given them long ago are handed over to the bakers as of
old.
Elsewhere these lands are spoken of as having been given to the
corporations' inoriginum'. Perhaps they were given by Frajan when he reorganised their
collegium, but as corn, not bread, was still distributed in his time it seems more likely
that they were given by the Emperor who first began the bread distributions.
The endowments were, according to Causiodorus, all over the world:
"dignitati quoque tues pistorum jura famulats sunt, quae par diversas mundi partas
possessione letissima tendebuntur."
They were apparently administered by the
patroni of the pistores but the prefect of the annona had to guard them against hurt. We
have seen that in 396 A.D. Honorius told them to appoint a suitable agent to look after
the properties. The patrons being occupied with the direction of the pistrina themselves
could not be travelling about and looking after the endowments. If they did not appoint a
trustworthy man the corporation would be robbed. The intention of Honorius' law may have
been to let the praetorian prefect supervise the appointment of the agent or bailiff.
There were some eventualities in which the baker's own land was
confiscated to become the common property of his corporation and so was added to the
endowed lands.
If a baker died and left his property to a shipowner the latter, as we
have seen, could accept the legacy and become liable to bear the burdens both of a
navicularius and of a shipowner or they could give up such "fortuitous heredity"
to relatives of the deceased or to the corporation of bakers, in which latter eventuality,
the said corporation would become the direct owner of such land. The same rule probably
held good in the case of legacies to members of other collegia than those of the
navicularii.
In the case of those bakers who tried to marry private persons or
actresses or circus riders against the law, their property was confiscated and attached to
a bakehouse, they themselves having been scourged and deported.
It would also seem that if anyone "by prayers to our Majesty"
had obtained release from his trade of baking, his property was confiscated to the
corporation of bakers, but the law does not make it clear whether this was the case or
whether it was confiscated to the Treasury. It mearly states that such a man shall be
punished by loss of his goods.
Thus as a result of the confiscations the common property of the
corporation of bakers was likely to increase rather than to diminish.
But this common property was appartnely attached rather to the
pistrinum than to the collegium. It is referred to as part of the equipment of a pistrinum
as we have seen. It is questionable whether the collegium owned it or merely enjoyed
possession of it, the property remaining in the ownership of the state. In theory at any
rate it may have vaguely resembled later feudal tenure of lands on condition of service.
The above cases relate to direct confiscations the former owner or heir
losing all rights to, and profit in, such lands. But the distinction between the corporate
endowed lands and the individual properties of the pistores is sometimes hard to perceive,
the latter lands being so tightly and inalienable bound to the use of the corporation that
they are sometimes also referred to as belonging to it.
In 369 Valendinian I decrees as follows: "there belong to the
bakery not only those properties which were assigned originally to the corporation and
which now still retain the name and appearance of an endowment, but also those which are
known to have passed to their heirs or to others by the Wills of bakers. In such cases it
can obviously be seen that they cannot be alienated." He goes on to say that the
members of this corporation cannot freely dispose of the property they have obtained by
the will or generosity of a stranger, or by marriage, on in any other way, and even this
property can only be transmitted to one of their associates i.e. to a baker! The law ends
by saying that if these properties are left in their estate they will be treated like the
rest of what they possess as endowments (dotis nomine ot titulo), because the piatrinus
must have the benefit of that which belonged to a baker during his lifetime.
In fact whatever a baker touched became tinged with the atmosphere of
the bakehouse. In other words any property acquired by a baker beyond his patrimony became
ipso facto "obnoxius paneficium functio".
More remarkable still is the fact that Valentinian here regards both
sorts of property - endowments proper and the properties which were divisible and were
handed on to the children or other legitimate heirs of the deceased baker - as equally the
property of the corpora of bakers. There was little distinction between the two sorts:
both were inalienable but one, that given long ago as endowment, was indivisible and was
administered by the corporation, whilst the other, the property, albeit in a limited sense
of the word, of the individual bakers, was divisible and was held as his personal property
by the baker although he could not alienate it or will it away.
The government had not always been so strict. Before 319 it seems that
the bakers had been allowed to dispose of their property as they pleased, for in that
year, Constantine rerfers to frauds of bakers who transferred their property to others in
order to enjoy it, free of burdens, in the name of another. The fraud seems to have been
something like that of a modern bankrupt who has transferred his property earlier to his
wife or relatives in order that he may live on it after his bankruptcy. The fact that
bakers could so defraud the government shows that before this time (319 A.D.) bakers could
legally and freely dispose of their property.
Subsequently it was found that it was not enough for the law to prevent
pretended alienations of property; even real alienations by bakers were prejudicial to the
"public necessity" and apparently some bakers preferred to lose their goods
rather than perform the hated work at the bakehouse. So in 364 Valentinian began to place
restrictions on the alienation of bakers' property. Property is not to be sold, or given,
or left by will, by bakers, to senators and officials under any circumstances, or to
strangers unless the latter will willingly undertake the duty of a baker. Senators and
officials could not obviously become bakers themselves and must therefore under no
circumstances obtain property "obnoxina functio pistoria".
Finally in 369 comes the decree referred to above which amounts to a
complete prohibition of sales, gifts or legacies by a baker to anyone but a baker.
The hereditary character of the property of bakers is more marked then
that of any other collegium of which we have information. After Valentinian there is
little distinction between the endowed lands and the private property of the bakers, both
alike are inalienable, the latter being only transferable from one baker to another, i.e.
within the corporation, and there being no provision for the holding of bakers lands
without being or becoming a baker as there is in the case of the navicularii. The seeming
exceptions of navicularii and senators are probably explained by the fact that the law
about the former did not hold good after Valentinian's decrees had been issued and that as
already suggested, the Senators referred to in 370 as holding property tied to bakehouses
were Senators made before 364.
RECRUITMENT OF BAKERS
However tightly the bonds by which bakers were
bound to their duty might be drawn and however strictly their sons and daughters and those
who inherited from them, might be held to their hereditary liability, the supply of bakers
was insufficient. As in all other trades the ranks dwindled as the supply of manpower was
indeed dwindling all over the Empire.
As no one would obviously become a baker voluntarily there was a
special method of recruitment in their case. There is a law of Valentinian of 370 A.D. and
one of Gratian of 380 A.D. which give us details of this recruitment.
The former speaks of an "officium" in Africa attached to the
corporation of bakers by which bakers are consigned to Rome every five years. As h owever
nothing is known of this officium and it is not clear exactly that it was or by whom
administered it will be well to quote the law in full before commenting on it.
"Secundum parentis nostri Constantini divale praeceptum omnibus lustris
pistores in officio, quod ei corpori constat addictum, ad urbem sacratissimam
destinentur. In quo "illud convenit praecaveri, ne quis baue, quae personalis est
1 functionem pretio putet ease taxandam". Veniant suo tempore, quos causa
constringit et its Veniant, ut sos officium, quod tibinaret, pistorum patronis
adque annonae prefecto aput publica monumenta consignet. Quod si quis judicum
statuto tempore personam, quae est destinanda, non miscrit, ipse profecto
remanebit obnoxius functioni, qui subtraxisse probatur obnoxium. In officium
quoque poena competeus exeretur, quod aut dissimulatione neglexerit aut fraude
subtraxerit judicem suum super vi legis et consuetudinis admonere."
Gothofredus in his commentary shows that there is here a distinction between the officium
which obeys the proconsul of Africa and the officium which is "addictum" top the
corpus of pistores. Therefore perhaps the latter was the officium of the lesser African
judges who were only clarissimi not spectabili and who were under the authority of the
Proconsul or Vicar of Africa.
It is impossible to say
whether there was a special bureau in Africa to deal with the recruitment of bakers or not
but it seems much more likely that the bureau of the governors of Africa (judicis Africae)
is meant. These latter were at any rate compelled to send the persons due every fiveyears.
Waltzing says the persons enrolled had to be sent by the bu reaus of the African Governors
to the prefect of the Annona and the patrons of the pistrina but the law seems to state
that the recruits are to be consigned by the bureau of the proconsul of Africa (ut eos
officium, quod tibi paret - - - consignet). The procedure seems clearly to have been for
the local Governors to enrol the recruits every five years, to send them up to the
proconsul of Africa and for the latter to send them on to Rome to the praefectus annonae
and the patrons of the bakehouses.
Who were the victims of
this forced recruitment is more obscure and more important. We know from C.Th.VIII 40 3.
that Constantine consigned to the bakehouses at Rome those convicted of light offences
(quicumque cohercitionem mereri ex causis non gravibus videbuntur, in urbis Romae pistrina
dedantur) and we find Valentinian confirming this sentence. These laws are addressed to
the prefect of the city at Rome to the governor of and or in case of Constantine's and to
the Praeses of Sardinia. There is no evidence to show that this sentence was applied
elsewhere. The law of Valentinian which I have quoted with its use of the words:
"quos causa corestringit" does not lead one to infer that these recruits for the
corpus of pistores were criminals. They were obviously not very poor people since the law
forbids them to avoid their liability by a money payment. When the judges are threatened
with being condemned to serve as bakers themselves if they do not send up the destined
person within the prescribed time the use of the word destinanda implies persons picked
upon to serve rather than criminals. Presumably the word condemned would have been used if
criminals had been referred to.
It is however impossible to say how these
bakers were recruited every five years. There is a law of 389 ordering the Prefect of the
City of Rome to add to the "functia mancipatus," anyone found suitable among the
members of the small corpora. It may be presumed that these governors had to levy a
sufficient number at the appointed time from amongst any persons who were free of a
particular obligation to the state (vacui, orotiosi) and the choice was purely arbitrary
and a matter of luck; this would explain the words "quos causa constringit". In
any case there would be few unburdened individuals with sufficient property to make
themselves useful to the bakehouses, and there would be little choice for the governor to
make. His difficulty in finding the recruits is obvious from the penalties imposed on him
and his office when he failed to do so.
The other law dealing with these African recruits to the corpus of pistores i.e. that of
Gratian in 380 merely tells the Vicar of Africa to terrify the African judges by telling
them that if the bakers due for the use of Rome are not forthcoming at the appointed time,
the said governors and their office are to be fined 50 lbs silver each. This may be a
merciful amending of Valentinian's law consigning such judges to be bakers but it may be
that the latter sentence had never been carried out.
Whether all these forced recruits from Africa were men with property or whether some of
them were poor men who would have to perform the hardest physical labour in the pistrina
it is impossible to say.
Another law which shows how arbitrary and regardless of liberty the government could be,
is that of Valentinian in 364 which decrees that when the sons of bakers are too young to
be made bakers at their fathers' death, others are to be enrolled in their place. When
such children grow up they are to take up their fathers duty in the bakehouse at the age
of 21, but their substitutes during the period of their minority are to remain bakers.
The case of the man who married a bakers daughter and became henceforth a baker himself
has already been dealt with. Another law decrees that a freedman who received anything by
will or gift from his master which was "obnoxius pistrinum" was to become a
baker himself. If such freedmen thought themselves members of other corporations, they
were to be taken out and attached to the bakers. If the legacy or gift they received
belonged to a senator they were non the less to become bakers but they were to pay the
glebalis tax from the lands subject to it although these same lands were now to benefit
the corpus of pistores. There can have been little left for the poor freedmen to enjoy. It
is also worth noting that it is this same year that Valentinian enrols in the corpus of
Cotabolenaes all freedmen whose total fortune is assessed at 30 lbs of silver. It will be
noted that both these decrees were issued in 370 a few months before the one concerning
the recruitment of pistores in Africa, and may give us the explanation of the method used
to obtain the recruits there. There is of course no proof that these two decrees,
addressed to the praefectus urbi at Rome, also applied in Africa but it does at any rate
throw some light on the sort of means by which new pistores were enrolled.
It is also interesting to find that it is Valentinian who issued nearly all the laws
relating to bakers and their property. Of the 21 laws which relate to the pistores (No. 9
of the 22 in Book XIV. Section 3 relates to catabolenses only) 8 are of Valentinian alone,
4 of Valentinian and Valens and they all concern the pistores of Rome. Valentinian and
Valens also issued all the laws but one consigning criminals to the pistrina. There is one
other decree referring to those forcibly enrolled as bakers. The explanation lies perhaps
in the fact that it was Valentinian who had re-established distribution of free bread in
the preceding year i.e. 369. In 398 at the time of the subjection of Africa to Gildo
Honorius refers to those "edscripti aemel per sententiam judicis ordini
pistorio" and forbids them appealing or obtaining release by stolen imperial
rescripts.
Those who do so are to pay a fine of 5 lbs of gold to the fisce and if the release was
obtained by bribing the judge who gave sentence, the latter, and his office also if
cognisant of the misdemeanour is to pay 50 lbs to the aererium.
Obviously from the terms of this law people could be made hereditary bakers by the judges
but whether it was done on account of some petty crime committed, or arbitrarily to quite
innocent people, is not shown.
It is probable that the latter is the case as the wrongdoers convicted of slight offences
were unlikely to be in a position to bribe the judges and their cases are dealt with
separately in another part of the Code.
The above were not the only means by which the numbers of the bakers were increased. The
slaves of Senators who illegally took part in the free distribution of bread were
condemned to work in chains in the bakehouses. Poor citizens who committed the same crime
were also condemned to work in the bakehouses, whilst men of substance found themselves
and their possessions tied to the service of the bakehouse they had defrauded.
An appariter of the praetorian prefect or of the offices of the palace who allowed himself
to be confided with a fiscal mission in his native province or in the province where he
lived was also punished by being made a pistor.
The case of the employee of the praefectus annonae or of the praefectus
urbi who was condemned to the functio pistorio if he caused vexations to the bakers has
been mentioned elsewhere.
Generally speaking the pistrina were the receptacles for all the
evildoers or light offenders who would conveniently be sent there. Yet in spite of all the
measures of the government the bakehouses were insufficiently supplied with labour and the
bakers tried to obtain men to do the hardest work by secret devices. There is a very
interesting passage in -- Socrates which tells us something of these ssecret devices and
which is worth quoting in full as it is useful evidence on other points than this and will
be subsequently referred to.
". . . . there were buildings of immense magnitude, erected in
ancient Rome in former times, in which bread was made for distribution among the people.
Those who had charge of these edifices who were called Nencipes in the Latin language, in
process of time converted them into receptacles for thieves. Now as the bakehouses in
these structures were placed underneath, they built taverns at the side of each where they
kept prostitutes; by which means they entrapped many of those who went thither either for
the sake of refreshment, or to gratify their lusts, for by a certain mechanical
contrivance they precipitated them from the tavern into the bakehouse below. This was
practised chiefly upon strangers; and such as were in this way kidnapped were compelled to
work in the bakehouses where many of them were immured till old age, not being allowed to
go out and giving the impression to their friends that they were dead. It happened that
one of the soldiers of the Emperor Theodosius fell into this snare; who being shut up in
the bakehouse, and hindered from going out, drew a dagger which he wore and killed those
who stood in his way; the rest being terrified, suffered him to escape. When the Emperor
was made acquainted with the circumstance he punished the Nencipes, and ordered these
haunts of lawless and abandoned characters to be pulled down. This was one of the
disgraceful nuisances of which the Emperor purged the imperial city.
GENERAL CONDITION AND STATUS OF THE BAKERS
No doubt the special harshness and strictness of the prohibitions
against the alienation of the lands of the bakers and the strictly personal lien by which
they were bound to the service of the state, were due to the objectionable nature of the
work due from the bakers. No doubt also it explains the special measures taken to recruit
new bakers which have been surveyed in the last section. It is important here to try to
distinguish the different duties performed by various classes of bakers although no
obvious distinction is made in the laws. It is impossible to believe that rich proprietors
were forced actually to go and grind corn and bake bread in the pistrins or to admit that
criminals were in the same case as hereditary bakers and new bakers enrolled from amongst
small landed proprietors.
We have seen that the bakehouses were furnished with slaves as part of
their equipment (officinam cum animalibus servis, moliss, fundis dotalibus pistrinorum,
postremo omnem euthecam.) There were furthermore the criminals condemned to the bakehouses
and these and the slaves were obviously forced to perform the hard manual labour such as
turning the mill stones to grind the corn. They must also have been in part employed in
kneading the dough and baking the bread. What work was therefore done by the owners of
land who were bakers by heredity and where personal service was always insisted upon. They
were not all patroni who managed the bakehouses and who were released after five years
service as senior patron of a bakehouse. Still many bakers must have been needed to
oversee the work in the bakehouse and to arrange the free distributions of bread on the
steps of the bakehouses.
The overseeing of the work done by the slaves, the criminals and the
lower class bakers would not be wither an easy or a pleasant task. Many must have hated
the brutality which they were bound to employ in order to keep these miserable creatures
at their work. Of the terrible conditions in a mill or bakehouse we have some idea from
ancient authors such as Apuloins, and the cnditions of work must have been much the same
in the 4th Century as in the 2nd. But in the 4th Century slaves were very much harder to
obtain, and we have seen in the preceding section that the bakers kidnapped strangers and
immured them for life in the bakehouses. Here presumably they worked like slaves in chains
under the lash turning the millstones or lifting the loaves in and out of the hot ovens.
Possibly the kneading of the dough was performed by actual pistores since it needed some
slight skill. The criminals would obviously be treated like the slaves. It cannot be
thought that the richer pistores were not allowed to hire others to do their work or to
employ slaves, and yet if so, why was the personal obligation of service made such a point
of?
It must be that such a one could use slaves to perform all the manual
work but he had to supervise them and was responsible for the production of a sufficient
number of loaves for distribution and sale. The patron of the cavdicarii or mensores who
was in charge of the stores at Ostia and who lost his property through fraudulent dealings
was called back to the lowest service in a bakery, although he might haave had the title
of Comes bestowed on him if he had not betrayed his trust. This shows that a moderately
wealthy man who had served in a responsible capacity could be put to the most menial
labour once he had lost his patrimony. Presumably therefore the work in the pistrina was
portioned out according to the income of the pistores in it. The richest would supervise
the work and hold the positions of responsibility, the poor ones without property would do
some of the manual labour and would be only a degree removed from the slaves and those
condemned to the pistrina on account of petty crimes. Perhaps the personal lien was
insisted upon so strictly just because of the increasing difficulty of obtaining slave
labour. If the pistores could not obtain slaves to do all the hardest work they would have
to do it themselves.
Again even if not doing the hardest work it must have been extremely
unpleasant to supervise the work of others in a hot bakehouse in the summer nights nor
would people like having to be up all night at all. Further the cruelty exercised on the
helpless slaves must have revolted many a man compelled to exercise such cruelty. These
seem sufficient reasons for the desire of the pistores to escape from their obligations
even in the case of those wealthy enought not to have to perform the actual hard labour;
even these may well have wished to alienate their property and be free of the bakehouse.
If the reasons stated above seem insufficient it must also be
recognised that there may have been many pistores with just enough property to live on
who, forced to 'bear the burdens' of pistores, were not rich enough to hire or buy others
to work for them and did actually labour in the istrina making and baking bread, being
just able to live and keep their families on their patrimony.
If there were many such, the imperial laws are much easier to
understand for such men one can see would very readily try to escape their burdens and
abandoning their property take on some other work where they could see some prospect of an
improvement in their condition. Whereas in a bakehouse however hard a man worked he
evidently got little profit from it. He lived on his property and worked all the year
round for practically nothing. Like many others they would try to escape and enter the
Civil Service e.g. those who had escaped into the decuria of aparitors were recalled by
Valentinian. The endowments of the bakeries may only have provided for their upkeep, for
the feeding of the slaves and animals and so forth. What little extra profit came from
them together with that derived from the sale of the panis fiscalis or ostiensis was
presumably divided up in proportion to the status of the pistores and the poorer ones
would have received very little. In any case the profits from sales must have been very
small.
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That even the more affluent pistores
found their position unenviable is evinced by the prohibition against their patrons or
contractors (mancipes) "going over to the decuriae in order to avoid the functio
pistoris ("mancipatus" taken by Gothofredus to mean the functio pistoris). In
the case of the navicularii as we saw curiales had finally to be forbidden to become
navicularii; in the case of the pistores the prohibition is the other way round. However
this law might be taken to refer to all contractors and seems to be a general prohibition
against their giving up their administration of state workshops of any sort although it is
placed among the laws about the pistores. These 'Mancipes' were apparently the patrons of
the pistores and were responsible for the running of the various bakeries. They may have
risen to that position by successive tenures of the various positions in the collegium or
they may have been appointed merely on account of their wealth. At any rate they were
released after five years as a senior patron but patrons would also have their property
confiscated and be relegated to menial bail in the bakery if they abused their position of
trust just as other pistores who defrauded the state of their property were kept to menial
duty in a pistrinum.
The pistores were also liable to have losses incurred at the granaries
made good from their properties. Presumably these loaves were made good by the patrons who
would be the responsible people in charge.
That people of substance were required as pistores is shown not only by
the laws against those who pretended to alienate their possessions or, who dissipated th
em to avoid doing duty as a baker but also by a law of Gratian in 377 forbidding the
filling up of the ranks of the bakers by those thrown over. The latter are obviously
bankrupts since at the end reference is made to provision against the vice of being a
spendthrift or bankrupt (decoctor) and for the needs of the annone publica. It seems
strange that those who went bankrupt should not have been forced to work in the
bakehouses, like those whose property was confiscated for misbehaviour or like those who
pretended to alienate it. Gothofreedus thinks that this law refers only to the patrons of
bakehouses and this seems the most likely explanation.
It is noticeable that all the decrees about the bakers refer to Rome.
Were those at Constantinople in a more enviable position? Perhaps there, plenty of the
inhabitants were wealthy merchants who bought good bread in the bakehouses and enabled the
bakers to make substantial profits. At Rome those who did not live on the free
distribution were mainly aristocrats whose slaves made their bread at home.
Before concluding the section on the pistores I should like to make
another suggestion as to the possible explanation of the desire of so many bakers to leave
their work. It is not at all certain whether all the bakers were sharers in the profits as
well as the duties of the bakehouse. Some, although possessing some little personal
property, may have worked for a wage in a bakehouse. The Tariff of Diocletian lays down 50
deniers as the wage of a baker and although this may only refer to the East it may
possibly be a normal wage elsewhere. At any rate it is one of the lowest in the Tariff.
What if the pistores were paid a wage in the bakehouse and had no part in the endowments
and profits of the bakehouse, those benefitting only the patrons. If merely an employee
the baker could find himself in much the same hopeless position as the colonus: bound to
his work by law and therefore compelled to accept any wage the patron might give him, just
as the colonus was boud to his farm by law but forced to pay rent at whatever rate his
landlord pleased.
The fact that the baker was forbidden to transfer from one workshop to
another seems to support this theory: his only likely reason for desiring to transfer can
have been the hope of better wages.
That poor people had hired themselves out in previous centuries to
grind corn in bakehouses or in provate fmailies we know from Aulus Cellus account of
Plantus, who is supposed to have written his early comedies in his intervals of rest
whilst earning his living turning a mill.
If many of the pistores were thus hired at a wage in the 4th century it
is easy to understand how intolerable their position must have been and how eagerly they
must have sought to escape. The fact that they possessed a little private property such as
a house, does not seem to me to disprove this theory. If on further investigation of the
evidence it were found to be true for the pistores it would go far to explaining the
increasing desire of the members of many other collegia to escapt from their performances
of their "functio originaria".
CATABOLENSES - CARRIERE
Closely allied to the pistores and referred to in the same set of laws
are the Catabolenses. Little is known about them or their precise function: Uessidorus
calls the people who transported marble at Ravenna catabolenses. It is certain that they
were at Rome attached to the annona and under the authority of the prefect of the City. It
is to the latter that the 2 laws referring to them (in Bk. XIV, section 3) are addressed.
Uothofreedus conjectures that they were conductors of draught animals or wagoners who
transported the corn from the Tiber to the barns and from the barns to the bakehouses,
and, after the establishment of water mills, the flour from the mills to the bakehouses,
and the bread to the places of distribution. On a cup of the IV or Vth Century a man is
depicted pulling a little loaded wagon and others are conducting wagons drawn by horses.
They are probably catabolenses.
To recruit new catabolenses Valentianian decreed that freedmen whose
total fortune was assessed at 30 lbs of silver were to be made members of the corpus of
Catabolences whether they possessed that sum in cash or any other species or in buildings
or fields. Gothefreedus takes it that freedmen were to be made members of this corpus if
their possessions exceeded 30 lbs of silver and if they had received anything from their
masters by donation or testament. For the other law referring to them shows that freedmen
who received from th eir masters legacies free of all ties to a 'corpus' were "to
serve the needs of the Catabolenses". Even if they already belonged to another
Collegium they were to be taken out and made into catabolenses.
Thus even the muleteers or wagoners had to be men of some substances
whose property would provide them with sustenance while they worked for the state. Of
course they would have some free time in which to act as carriers on their own account.
C H A P T E R VII
COLLEGIA CONNECTED WITH THE MEAT SUPPLY
AND THE WINE SUPPLY
S E C T I O N I
Meat Deals: Suarii, pecuarii, bourii.
In Republican times the butchers formed a collegium presided over by
two Magistrates that this collegium is not found later. The mutton merchants associated at
Praeneste probably also had a college at Rome but there is no trace of it.
The Digest shows that under the Empire the prefect of the city had to
ensure the supply of cheap meat and the purveyors of meat were thus naturally included
amongst the privileged merchants useful to the annona. They formed 3 separate collegia:
Boarii - beef dealers
Pecuarii (pequarii) - mutton dealers
Suarii - pork dealers
Since pork was the more usual diet of the Romans and the most east to
obtain the suarii were naturally the most important of the three - Waltzing quotes a
fragment of Ulpian to show that Severus and Caracalla accorded exemption from the
"tutella" to all those who did business in the pig market, an immunity stated to
be already enjoyed by all those who served the annona. They had however to devote two
thirds of their fortune to this commerce. The authorities had a list of the people who
fulfilled the necessary conditions and who had accordingly been given a certificate by the
praefectus urbi. "sed et quii in foro saurio negotiantur, si duabus partibus bonorum
annonam juvent, habent excusiationem litteris allatis (a praefecto) urbis testimonialibus
negotiationis; ut imperator noster et divus Severus Manilio Cereali rescripserunt; quo
rescripto declaratur, ante eos non habisse immunitatem, sed nunc cis dari eam, quae date
est his, qui annonam populi Romani juvant."
Symmachus counts the three collegia which supplied meat amongst those
regular corporations of the capital which served the public needs of Rome.
It was naturally the Suarii who became indispensable after the
institution by Aurelian of free distributions of lard.
SERVICES RENDERED BY THE SUARII
The suarii were not mere shopkeepers who sold pork and lard in the
market place, in that case their importance would not have been so great. They were
wholesalers as well as retailers and were responsible for the collection and transport of
necessary supplies.
Since pork was distributed free by the government to the people of Rome
one is not surprised to find that it was supplied gratis by someone. It was supplied by
the Landowners of Campania, Lucania, and Bruttium, Samnium and even occasionally Sardinia.
In fact it was supplied by most of the Italian possessers south of Rome as part of their
taxes to the state; these were the lands which grew little in the way of grain and were
chiefly used for vine growing and for rearing of cattle, pigs and other livestock.
The suarii had at first the duty of actually collecting the pigs due
from the landowners to the government. Naturally this involved a great deal of labour and
trouble. Furthermore losses occurred in transit owing to the diminishing value of the
pigs, which lost weight as they walked to Rome or even on the shorter journey from their
homes to the market towns where they were collected and killed. For this reaon the suarii
seem before the time of Constantine to have demanded money from the landowners in place of
actual pigs and to have been allowed to do so. For in 324 Constantine tells the prefect of
the City that the possessor shall have the option of not paying money to the suarius, as
allowed heretofore, lest in estimating the weight of the pigs license is allowed to the
suarii, i.e. to guard against the suarius putting too high a price on the pigs. The
suarius for example, in the case of a man whose contribution was a pig weighing 114 lbs.
could estimate the money due from him at the rate of 2 denarii per lb. when the price
current in the district was in reality only 1 denarius per lb.
The law goes on to say that when the suarius estimates correctly the
value of the meat due the "possessor" can have the choice of paying his tax
either in kind or in money. In collecting the money the suarius and the possessor are to
estimate the value of the pork at the current market price of the district. Further since
the "forma pretiorum" are not the same at all times and in all places, prices
are to be given in the current specie unless pork itself is produced.
To precluce all confusion or unfairness Constantine also decrrrs that
the governors of the regions are to report each year to the prefect of the City what are
the current prices of pork in the different localities; the prefect is to examine the
reports and to inform the suarii. The latter are then to set out and collect the moneys in
the different districts, the prefect will know from the reports he has received and from
the number of pounds due from the various landowners (presumably written down in the
Census) just what amount the suarii are to collect. In this way it will be no concern of
the suarii to "compare dear and cheap", the amount they are to collect from each
"possessor" being fixed. They will thus have no cause to grumble. The
"possessores" will under this scheme be moderate in the prices they demand when
they retail their pork locally, knowing that if they put up the prices in their district,
they will have to pay more in taxation when the suarii come round to collect.
It would seem at first sight that the government was using a needlessly
complicated System in the collection of its taxes. Why not have assessed each landowner at
so much cash per head and collected it direct? Although so much simpler this method would
actually have been less fair seeing that it would have taken no account of fluctuations in
the price of pigs from year to year. A regular amount might have meant great hardship one
year when the price of pork was low and loss to the government another year when the price
was high.
It might have been thought that such elaborate regulations would have
achieved the desired result, i.e. that the government should always receive a sufficient
amount, that the suarii should not oppress the landowners nor grumble at their losses in
collecting; that the landowners should not be too heavily assessed when paying money in
place of taxes in kind, and that the price of pork should be kept low in the local
markets.
However the system established by Constantine does not seem to have
worked perfectly or at any rate Julian thought he could improve upon it in the case of
Campania. In 362 or 363 the latter Emperor took from the possessores of Campania the
choice of paying in kind or in money. Henceforth "adaeratio" is compulsory and
it is to be made, as before, at the cu rrent price in Campania, the possessores are to pay
money for each lb. of pork due valued at the price current in the public markets in
Campania. The collection is to be taken away from the suarii and is not to be made by the
officials of the urban prefecture but by the officials of the Governor of Campani. The
curiales and the ordinqary "judices" are to do the collecting "because the
officials of the more powerful are wont to oppress the provincials".
The governor of Campania has been told
that the officials of the urban prefecture and the suarii have had the duty of collection
taken from them and that he himself shall henceforth bear all the responsibility of the
collection. He is threatened with grave penalties if any fraud is practised in
transmitting the moneys. The moneys transmitted are to be handed over to the suarii at
Rome who although they no longer collect the sums due, are held responsible for the supply
of sufficient quantities of pork to the people of Rome.
It should be noted that this decree of Julian makes it seem likely that
the system previously had been for the suarii to be helped or supervised in their annual
collection of pigs and money by the officials of the Urban prefecture of Rome.
Although Campania alone is dealt with it may be that the collection was
taken away from the suarii in Southern Italy also by other decrees. The one extant is
addressed to the pr. urbi and Campania being joined to his administration may have been
the only district where his officials had taken part in the collections.
Further changes in the method of collection were made by Valentinian in
367. He gave back to the landowners the right to choose whether they would supply meat or
compound by a money payment for the amount due. But if they choose to make a money payment
it would seem the 'adaeratio' was made at the price current in the Roman Market, since
that was the rate considered as "legitimate" when the suarii received the money
from the collectors. If so this would be unfavourable to the landowners as compared with
the previous arrangement seeing that the price at Rome would obviously be higher than the
local price. It would however be an advantage to the suarii since they would receive more
money with which to buy the pigs or pork with which they had to supply the people of Rome.
If the landowners chose to pay in kind a stricter method of estimating
the weight of a pig is instituted by this decree. It is to be ascertained by test of a
weighing balance and not by guessing from the look of the animals even when the owner
agrees to the estimate thus arrived at. Furthermore the owner is to give the pig in
question nothing to eat from the night before its delivery so that it shall not be weighed
at the favourable moment just after it has eaten and be estimated at a greater weight than
it will sink to after some hours in transit!
The collection is now done by an "ordo suarius". This cannot
be the suarii themselves for the "ordo" hands over to the suarii the moneys and
meat collected and yet the saurii are spoken of as estimating the weight of the pigs. But
it is the "ordo" which is to decide the price in cases of adseratio.
Waltzing thinks this ordo saurius must be the employees of the governor
who collected the pigs and the money and who may have formed themselves into a special
ordo in the office of the governors.
This "ordo" is also mentioned in the edict of Apronianus who
was prefect of the City at the time of Julian's edict about the saurii and whose edict is
referred to with approval by Valentinian.
A decessore tuo salubriter institutun ast "au jus modum non prives
ponderatione certa deciderit saurius". Why then are the saurii still referred to in
367 as taking part in the estimation of the weight of pigs? I have found no explanation
attempted. Were they perhaps still sent round, but now under the superintendence and
control of the local governor, to judge the weight and quality of the pigs delivered by
the possesores? Perhaps experts were needed for this whereas in the case of adaeratio no
expert knowledge of pig flesh was necessary and the collection could easily be done by the
employees of the governor, i.e. the "ordo saurius". For in the latter case it
was known how many lbs a possessor had to deliver and it was simple arithmetic merely to
calculate what so many lbs cost at the Roman Market price and to collect that sum from the
landowner.
In the case of pigs the saurii himself was perhaps less likely to be
cheated as regards quality and weight since he had expert knowledge of pig flesh. Of
course it may be that the word saurius in Latin quoted means a member of the ordo saurius.
Beyond our period, i.e. in the time of Valentinian II in 452 A.D. yet
another means of collection was instituted. The patrons of the saurii were given the
choice between two methods of collection. Either it was to be done by the office of the
praetorian prefecture helped by 5 saurii, or by the saurii themselves under the
supervision of the govenror of the province who was himself responsible. This arrangement
however does not concern us here except to prove how often the government or the saurii
must have found the method adopted for procuring the necessary pork to have been
unsatisfactory and so to have sought to establish a better system.
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The saurii were therefore responsible for the supply of pork at
Rome and were under the authority of the primiscrinii of the prefect of the City and of
those of his vicar. The latter was under the prefect of the City; the governors of
the provinces concerned, e.g., Campania and the S. of Italy generally, were under the
vicar. The primiscrinii referred to were held responsible with their property if the
saurii did not do their duty, "ut es propriis facultatibus debits sauriae
functionis praebeatur". It must be noted that this may only have been after 419
when there was still so much confusion after the invasion of -------.
The saurii had also to prepare the pigs flesh collected and we find
them called corpus sauriorum et confectuariorum in the year 337 A.D.
This inscription shows that the said collegium set up a statue some
time after Diveletian to their worthy patron B. Aroadius Valeria Proculus and it gives a
list of the offices held by the said Proculus ending with "praefecto urbi vice saors
iterum judicanti; consuli ordinario".
The collegium of "swinedealers and pork butchers" was
probably in the habit of choosing the praefectus urbi as their patron seeing that he
controlled their activities for the government and would be useful to them; he would be
pleased with the honour of having a statue put up to him. Such honours were accorded
to high officials by the collegia either to propitiate them or in grateful recognition of
consideration received.
PRIVILEGES AND PROTECTION
It has already been mentioned in the resume of the history of the
Saurii, pecuarii and boarii previous to the 4th Century A.D. that they were specifically
exempted from the tutela as well as being granted the other privileges allowed to
all the collegia at Rome qui annonam populi Romani juvant".
They do not appear to have received exemption from the munera sordida
at extraordinarie" until the time of Gratian for when Valentinian II in 369 confirmed
them in the enmoyment of this privilege "cum parvigilem laborem populi Romani
commodis exhibeant", he refers to it as granted by Gratian "id se divae memoriae
Cratiani beneficio mermiore proponunt, ne sordidis umquan munaribus subjacerent".
The prefect of the City is to impress upon his office i.e. his subordinate that
they must respect the Concession. This privilege h ad been awarded to the
navicularii as early as 329 but perhaps it was more necessary in their case as such munere
extraordinarie et sordide would be more frequent and more onerous in the provincial
cities than at Rome where most public needs were provided for by the central government.
In the case of the other collecia of Rome, apart from general references to their
privileges there is no mention of this specific privilege till 391. In the case of
the pistores it is not mentioned at all though presumably they must have been exempt
before 391.
Although only the three senior patrons of other collegia were immune
from corporal punishment at the hands of the prefect of the annona and cold receive it by
order of the prefect of the City. Suarii were all declared immune from such
punishment by Honorius in 419; "nulle tamen cos corponis injurise formide
percelat".
This concession, it is true, was granted at the time when Honorius was
re-establishing the collegia after the sack of Rome by Alario; he was on the one hand
re-calling the members of the Collegia to their duties and on the other hand coaxing them
back by concessions.
Valentinian III in 452 forbids the apoaritoes to inflict injury
or exactions on the saurii.
Another concession of a peculiar sort which we find mentioned in the
laws as granted to the saurii is being allowed to use horses when engaged on their own
business (qui propreis officis occupantur). The use of horses had been forbidden in
364. Picenum, Flaminia, Apulia, Calobris, Lucanis and Samnium except in the case of
certain provileged persons. The object was to prevent robberies, violence and so
forth in those districts; presumably evildoers could not escape if they were on foot.
Waltzing speaks of the saurii as being allowed to use horses "dans les courses
qu'ils devaient faire pour parcevoir les 4 especes porcines. The words used in the
Code are "qui proprius officis occupantur" so that it does not refer to
collection from the inhabitants as might be supposed by the phrase used by Waltzing.
The saurii were at this date, as we have seen, only allowed to receive the money or
pigs flesh from the officials who levied the tax. Their work, for which they needed
to ride, was that of going round to the depots in the various districts and collecting the
money. With this money, they would, it may be supposed, buy pigs or pork in the
South and take them to Rome. The pork which they had to supply to the people of Rome
could obviously be bought more cheaply in the South than near Rome.
HONOURS
In 419 Honorius granted the title of Count of the third order to the
three principle men of the corpus of Saurii (tres nujus corporis principales); these are
presumably their three quinquennales or corresponding highest officials. They are
not called patrons in the law - the word used in the case of the head men amongst the
pistores presumably because the patrons of the saurii were honorary and chosen amongst
high officials or senators e.g. the pr. urbi.
PAYMENT
The saurius was as we have seen protected against fluctuations in the
price of pork so that he was always to receive enough meat from the landowners of S. Italy
to supply the people of Rome with their free allowance of prok, or to receive enough money
with which to buy pigs or pork for this purpose.
They were in addition given some payment for this service in much the
same way as the navicularii.
Firstly they were allowed 5% on the goods collected to cover their
expenses. Whether they received this payment of 5% when they received the
collections in money is doubtful. The law lays down that the 8% extra is not to be paid
by the possessores who pay their tax in cash. This may refer to an extra 5% levied
for the benefit of the ordo saurius and may not affect the saurii. Apart from this
they were compensated for the loss which "necessarily occurs between the collection
and the delivery" by an allowance of wine. This last concession was confirmed
by Valentinian in 367 but it had originally been granted a few years before by that
Apronianus who had been prefect of the City at the time of Julian's law of 362 and to
whose edict reference has already been made. In this edict he had decided to take
out of the public stores 25,000 amphorae of the wine supplied as taxes by the same
landowners of S. Italy who supplied the pork, and to give two thirds of it to the saurii
(i.e. 16,666) amphorae and the remaining 1/3rd to the "ordines qui saurium faciant or
recognuscunt".
Valentinian is confirming the edict lays down the amount of wine to be
collected for the saurii as 17,000 amphora making a round sum of Apronian's 16,666
amphora. The Ordo saurius is later referred to as receiving the payment of wine in
common with the saurii.
As regards the value of the wine it is difficult to decide although
necessary, if we are to guage in any way the amount realised by the sauri from the sale of
the wine for we cannot supplse that the saurii sat down to drink the 17,000 amphora of
wine.
Waddington referring to Valentinian III's law of 445 says that 70 lbs
of meat were then recokoned as the price of an amphora of good wine so that soldiers could
buy 1 lb. of meat for 1/270 solidus (on the authority of XIV. 4 . 3 which shows 1 lb. of
pig taxed at 6 folles = 1/48 solidus). He recognises however that this price is
impossibly low and thinks there must be some error in the text.
It should be noted that Valentinian's law of 367 although it allows a
sort of adaeratio of 70 lbs. of meat in place of wine, in the case of the landowners of
Luccania and Bruttium who were affected by the loss of the long transit, does not say how
many amphora 70 lbs. of meat took the place of. If Waddington is really referring to
this law it seems that he has no warrant for taking 70 lbs as equal to one amphora of wine
only. Waltzing takes it in this sense, though he does not give h is reasons.
HEREDITARY TIE A) PERSONAL B) OF POSSESSIONS
Although the hereditary obligation on the properties of saurii is
absolute the hereditary personal obligation is not so strongly enforced as that of the
pistores and there are less drastic measures taken for the securing of new members.
This does not mean necessarily that the profession of a saurius was enviable or that
people did not seek to escape from it and were not ruthlessly recalled.
Already in 334 Constantine states that the corpus of Saurii has become
very small and he orders an enquiry to be instituted. The saurii are to state in
open court 9edetante populo Romano) to whom they have granted exemption from their duties
and by whom these duties ought to be performed, they are to be treated in the same way as
the navicularii.
therefore they are to realise that their possessions are bound to the
duty of the saurii (obnoxias muneri sauriorum) and of two alternatives they may
choose one; either they shall keep the possessions "quae sauriae functioni destricts
sunt" and themselves do duty as saurii or they are to appoint substitutes who will
perform the necessary duty. Prresumably substitutes would not be obtainable unless
the original saurii gave up their possessions to them; at any rate the implication of the
whole clause is that in the second alternative the saurii lost their hereditary
possessions.
Constantine further makes it clear that no one is to escape his cuty as
a saurius by obtaining office i.e. by entering the civil service, nor can he escape by
cunning. Such men who attempt to evade their duties in these ways are to be recalled
and put back into the collegium a judicial enquiry being held before the Roman people and
the Emperor being consulted above them in order that he may be cognisant of those who make
use of this subterfuge. In a word no one is to have exemption and whoever manages to
slide out shall be liable to punishment.
The most important thing to note h ere is that under Constantine a
saurius could escape if he gave up his possessions and could provide a substitute.
Although harsh the law did not force a man to remain a saurius after the loss or sale or
gift of his inheritance.
In spite of the restrictions of the above law Valentinian found in 389
that the means of the saurii had decayed because their lands and farms had been made over
to strangers 'by many sorts of donation". He adopts stronger measures than
Constantine who was content to bind the descendants of Saurii and decrees that it is
"full of equity and lawful" for the prefect of the city to force them to take up
the name and duty of their ancestry. "Consanguineos quoque eorum vel originalos
ut memoratorium nomini functionique juboas adjungi, plonum et açquitatis et juris
est".
In 397 Honorius speaks of those "quem successio generis
adstringit" as distinct from him "quem possessio tenet" implying that
descent compells a man to be a saurius whether he holds property "obnoxius functio
suariorum" or not. The saurii are not to lose those "adtributos" to
their ordo nor are they to seek foreign and distant possessions free from these burdens in
place of their own possessions and customary rents.
A few years later Honorius makes it clear exactly what manner of
persons are hereditarily bound to serve as suarii. He begins in this decree by
recalling to their original obligation (pristinas munus) whosoever from the corpus of
suarii are known to have refused the service to which they are bound by their origin;
whether they have done so by means of a petition or by anyone's help or through holding
office or by "adnotatios" or rescripts from the Emperor. All are to be
recalled whether they are bound by the maternal or the paternal relationship (tam
qui paterno quam qui materno genere inveniuntur obnoxii).
No suarius may enter the civil or the military service even if he has
obtained special permission by begging from the Emperor and obtaining a rescript;
howsoever permission has been obtained it is invalid).
In one respect only does Honorius treat the Suarii more leniently than
the pistores: those who have entered the ranks of the clergy can remain there is
they hand back their patromony to the collegium of suarii. It will be remembered
that the pistores were not allowed to enter the Church under any condition.
Shortly after the sack of Rome by Alaric Honorius joined the pecuarii
to the suarii and at the same time had an enquiry instituted to recall the members who had
abandoned their duties. or whatever other work they might be performing.
HEREDITARY POSSESSIONS
As regards their properties we have already seen Constantine's
arrangement. Valentinian, in addition to his measures for recalling those personally
bound by their heredity in 389, decreed that those (strangers' who had obtained lands and
farms by any sort of donation from suarii were to give them up or if they refused, they
were to be made suarii themselves since they held property bound to the service of the
suarii. Hence the acquirers of property once owned by suarii must become suarii
unless they give it up; no compensation is given to them and there is no mention of their
being allowed just to bear the burden of a suarius in proportion to the amount of land
they held. Honorius in 397 again states the same principle and does not even give
the option of giving up their property to such strangers. Whether the nation refers
to persons or things "he is not to be held less tied whom possession holds than whom
the succession of race compells."
Again in 408 Honorius repeats that those who hold lands tied to the
collegium, having claimed them either by purchase or donation, or by any other title, are
to acknowledge their obligation or give up their possessions "for the public
good".
In the law of 419 when Horius in reconstituting the
collegium of suarii after the sack of Rome he speaks of the restitution of the persons of
suarii together with their possessions.
To conclude it seems clear (a) that by the time of Valentinian at any
rate all suarii are hereditarily bound to do personal service as suarii, (b) that all
possessions of suarii remain for ever bound to bear the burdens of the suarii.
But whether or not suarii were allowed to sell their lands to strangers
or leave them by will is not certain, strangers evidently did get possession of
such lands occasionally whether they ought to have done or not. If they did they
became suarii themselves unless they give up the said lands.
Whether alienation was permisable or not there are no such definite
laws against it as in the case of the pistores, who were eventually forbidden to transfer
lands to any but bakers.
However in the circumstances given above it is unlikely that a suarius
would be able to find anyone to buy his burdened lands, nor would he want to if he still
had to serve as a suarius for presumably a suarius without land was given the most
objectionable work to do, such as the cutting up and preparing of the pork and bacon so in
actual fact the position of the suarii cannot have been much more favorable than that of
the pistores.
RECRUITMENT
Beyond the roping in of strangers who had acquired
"Suarian" lands and who holding their personal service of the descendants of
suarii on both the maternal and paternal side, we know of only one means by which the
numbers of the suarii were increased. This is the joining to the collegium of the
collegium of the pecuarii by Honorius in 419. This was obviously a special measure
taken at a difficult time when many of the inhabitants of Rome had fled and it did not
last. In 452 the suarii pecuarii and boarii are again in three distinct collegia.
PECUARII AND BOARII
The two collegia of the mutton dealers and beef dealers are fitly dealt
with here as they supplied Rome with the rest of her meat supply. As there was no
free distribution mutton and beef there is no question of their being specially burdened
with a state service but as the adequate supply of the Roman market was of great
importance they were also under the supervision of the praefectus Urbi and were given the
same general privileges as the collegia which served the annona. They bought sheep
and bullocks which they sold in the mutton market and the beef market under the control of
the state. These animals came mostly from the south of Italy and there is no
question of sea transport.
We do not know if the sales were made at cheap rates and subsidized by
the government but it is improbable as there is no record of such subsidies. The
only information we have comes from a second edict of the Apronian whose edict about the
suarii has already been referred to. It is dated 353 and concerns the pecuarii only.
It relates to the procedure to be adopted in the weighing of the
animals: the parts to be weighed and charged to the buyer and the payment of the butcher
who does the killing; he is to be given the head and feet of the animal.
SUARII, PECUARII AND BOARII
SOCIAL CONDITION
There is no reference to suarii becoming senators. Although they
seem quite often to have held offices of some sort, and we have seen that some of the
municipal ones reached the title of Count of the 3rd order. Most of the pecuarii and
boarii must have been men of middle ranks needing some capital to buy the animals which
they sold as meat. The killing of the livestock was evidently often done by a man
who was not himself a suarius, pecuariua or boarius.
The members of the collegia probably hired low class persons to do the
unpleasant work of preparing the meat and they must also have had slaves for this purpose.
There is an inscription from Rome of a pork and mutton dealer called Marcus
Antonius Claudia Teranius by origin from the city of Misonum who performed all the duties
and held all the offices of his native town. This shows that in a provincial town a
meat dealer might easily make an equal with the middle class landowners who sat in the
curia. In Rome there is of course no question of service in the curia (the senate
being the curia of Rome) but on the analogy of the position in the provinces and in view
of the evidence of the code as to their properties the meat dealers must have been men of
middle class but are unlikely to have included men of such high rank and wealth as the
Navicularii.
It would be interesting to know if the suarii pecuarii or boarii were
in any sense a limited corporation and formed any sort of meat trust. There is
naturally no evidence on this point and for all we know anyone may have been able to buy
and sell meat in the Roman Market. The state at any rate would have prevented the
meat dealers raising the price of meat too high.
Seemingly from the edict of Apronian the pecuarii and presumably also
the boarii, bought their meat at Rome and did not go South like the suarii to obtain it.
They were probably retailers as well as wholesale buyers; seeing that the suarii
seem to have been responsible for the distribution of pork to the people they must have
been accustomed to prepare small pieces for sale and thus have been retailers. The
suarii must have had a monopoly of seling in the Roman market and have thereby derived
some benefit from their state service. Furthermore, nothing was to stop them buying
pigs in the South of Italy on their own account whilst collecting the money and pigs flesh
due to the government. This they could sell at a profit to those who received no
free allowance and to those who could pay for more than they received gratis.
S E C T I O N II
THE PERSONNEL CONNECTED WITH THE WINE SUPPLY
It has been seen in the preceeding pages that wine was paid to the
suarii and collected from the landowners in the lands south of Rome. A little
further consideration of the wine supply is necessary.
There was a special area vinaris at Rome in ch arge of a rationales
vinorum. The wine itself was obtained from the landowners of southern Italy who
had to bring their quote to the Campus Martius at Rome. Here it was received by the susceptores
vini who formed a special collegium. There is a very interesting inscription
extant which throws some light on the methods of collecting and checking of the supplies
and which, incidentally, furnishes an example of the waste of effort and the unnecessary
expense involved by the large number of people concerned in the transaction.
It is on the fragment of a marble tablet and provides for the following
payments to be made to various people: "To the haustores (those who fill the
casks of wine) 30 nummi.
To the Tabularii: 20 nummi for each receipt they give out.
To the Exasciator (he who opens and shuts the barrels): 10 nummi per cupa.
To the Palancarii (who are wont to carry the casks from the place called "Ciconias
nixas" to the temple (of the sun) --- nummi.
To the guardians of the casks (custodes cuparum) --- nummi.
The inscription further states that after the degustatio the ampullao, (i.e. the
vessels for carrying the wine) are to be given back to the possessores and the latter are
to receive 120 scaterces per cask in payment.
Hence, apart from the growers of the wine, that is the possessores, 5
classes of people received payment: the hanstores, the tabularii, the Reasciator, and the
Palancarii and the costodes cuparum.
In 400 Honorius endeavoured to stop the frauds which were occurring.
He found th at the "possessores" were guiltless and he forced the
susceptores to make good the deficits.
Part of the wine in the area finaris was sold cheap to the people of
Rome, part was used for the payments made to officials and to members of certain collegia:
the suarii dealt with in the last chapter and the lime burners dealt with in the
next.
Since the law is the Theodosian Code dealing with the susceptores vini
is recalled in the Justinian Code it may be inferred that wine was also sold to the
inhabitants of Constantinople below the market price.
C H A P T E R VIII
COLLEGIA CONNECTED WITH THE OTHER PUBLIC NEEDS OF ROME AND CONSTANTINOPLE
SECTION I. The Public baths and their upkeep.
SECTION II. The limeburners etc.
C H A P T E R VIII
SECTION I
THE PUBLIC BATHS AND THEIR MAINTENANCE
The Roman people had to be provided not only with free food and
amusements but with hot baths at a nominal fee. The public "therms" were
magnificent establishments where people went to bathe, to rest, to meet their
friends and generally to enjoy themselves. According to the Notitia there were 856
at Rome.
It is obvious that since the cost of entry was nominal, some class of
persons would have the duty of providing for their upkeep. The people who thus
"served the Roman people" were called Mancipes thermarum or mancipes
salinarum.
Symmachus speaks of them in the following terms: "Invendi
sunt mancipes sulinarum, qui splendori atque usui patrias sommanis inservlunt" and
"mancipes salinarum, qui exercent lavacra lignorum praebitions", and in the
Theodosian code the Salinae (salt depots) are spoken of as serving the baths of the Roman
people "salinie stiam omnibus praeter mancipum quae populi Romani lavaoris
inserviunt"j.
The explanation is almost certainly to be found in the fact that three
"mancipes" had formerly rented the salinae at Rome from the State, and were
subsequently allowed to exploit them free of charge to compensate them for their services
in supplying the baths.
These salinas were store houses or depots where the merchants were
compelled by law to deposit all the salt sold at Rome. The Justinian Code shows that
salt sold without passing through the storehouses leased out to the mancipes, had to be
sold for the latter's profit, i.e. the mancipes had the right to levy a sort of toll on
all salt sold at Rome: "si quis sine persona mancipum, id est salinarum
conductorum, sales emarit venderave tentaverit, sive propria audacia sive
nostro munitus craculo, sales ipsi una cum eorum pretio mancipibus addicantur".
Thus in origin the mancipes salinarum were just farmers of part of the
"Vectigalia"; when the proceeds of the "salt duty" were assigned to
the upkeep of the baths they became mancipes thermarum as well as mancipes salinarum.
In other words the mancipes thermarum supplied the baths with necessaries (chiefly
wood), being compensated for this service by their exploitation of the salinae.
Waltzing states that Gebhardt explains otherwise the connection between
the mancipes thermarum and the salinae but I have not been able to obtain Gebhardt to
ascertain what is his theory. The language of the one law in the Theodosian Code
"De Mancipibus thermaum urbis et subvectione lignorum" seems to leave
little doubt as to the truth of the usual explanation. It was addressed to the
praefectus Urbi in 368 or 370 and runs as follows: "Quidquid erga
mancipes qui thermarum exhibitioni Romaao curant, in exercitio conpendiisque salinarum
scitis priorum principum cautum est, aeterna sanctione firmamus".
The reference to profits (compendiis) from the salinae at the same time
as to the care of the baths seems to make no other explantion possible.
The words "qui thermarum exhibitionem Romao curant" imply
that the mancipes thermarum were alone responsible for the heating of the baths and their
general upkeep.
For part of the supply of the necessary wood for this purpose the
navicularii were called in to convey from Africa "lignea idonoa publicis
necessitatibus". These latter are probably the "navicularii lignarii"
met with on an inscription from Ostia and, I have already mentioned them in the Chapter on
the Navicularii. This is however not the only way in which the collegia of
navicularii helped. There is a somewhat obscure decree of the year 369 which says
that 60 of the whole body of navicularii (presumably the navicularii of Rome as the decree
is addressed to the Prefect of the City) are to be held liable to the present need.
The decree further provides that nothing more is to be demanded from anyone of them,
"than the needs of the baths demand or than the long prescribed form lays down."
This decree is explained by a letter of Symmachus of the year 384.
In it he speaks at some length of the means taken to fill up the ranks of the
mancipes salinarum when their numbers were so reduced that they could not perform their
public services. He is recalling to their collegium such mancipes salinarum as had
left it on the intervention of a certain Macedonius, and he suggests that the said
collegium (vacantes). He goes on to mention the "navicularii seque lignorum
obnoxius functioni", who, rather than cooperate entirely with the mancipes thermarum,
had given up a certain number of their members to the latter.
He can only be referring to the 60 navicularii "held liable to the
present need" in 369 and his letter shows that these 60 navicularii ceased to be
navicularii and became "mancipes thermarum" themselves.
Symmachus' proposal to the Emperor to fill up the ranks of the corpus
of mancipes salinarum from the "vacantibus" and from other corpora seems to have
been agreed to a few years later, for in 389 Valentinian enrolled members of the little
collegia (miniscula corpora) and men with no definite duties (otiosi) among the mancipes.
This decree may refer to the bakers as well as to the mancipes salinarum but there
is little doubt that it does refer to the latter.
DUTIES
Gothfredus shows in his commentary on XIV.5. of the Theodosian Code
that there was need of three things for the baths: lights or lamps, heating or wood,
and people to run them, i.e. mancipes, The lights were collected from the
payments made by the houses constructed by private individuals in the doorways of the
baths. As regards heating, the wood was not all supplied from Africa as part of the
taxes of that province. Part was supplied from the revenues of the city as was also
the case in Constantinople.
For the conveyance of these supplies of wood or "wood duty"
(functio lignaria) the mancipes thermarum and the navicularii were responsible.
Gothfredus thinks that the African navicularii conveyed such supplies as came from Africa
to Portus; from thence the 'litrones' and other navicularii conveyed it to Rome.
The mancipes also undertook the general management of the baths.
SECTION II. THE LIMEBURNERS - CONVEYERS OF LIME
(Calcis coctores & Vectuarii)
The upkeep of the public buildings of Rome was all part of the
"necessary service" rendered by certain collegia to Rome; it was in the same
category as the supplying of food and of wood for the baths. Indeed the
consideration of the mancipes thermarum leads on directly to the study of certain other
collegia which helped to keep up the public buildings of all sorts. The series of
laws following the solitary one about the mancipes thermarum urbis et subvectionis
lignorum concerns the Calcis coctores: Limeburners of Rome and Constantinople.
The lime was of course required for the upkeep of the public buildings
in both cities and the burning of it was performed by the collegium of Calcis coctores
sometimes called "Calesrienses" who were held specially to this service.
Associated with them in the same series of law are the vectuarii
or vectores, the waggoners who carried the lime to Rome in their carts. Both
collegia were under the authority of the urban prefect of Rome to whom or to the vicar,
his subordinate, all the laws concerning them are addressed. According to
Cessiodorus both the limeburners and the waggoners who transported the lime were under a
prepositus calois who was himself under the urban prefecture. Although their ----
were obviously similar, collegia at Constantinople, witness the title of the series of
laws, they are not referred to except in the last decree of the series dealt with at the
end of this section.
The lime for burning was furnished in the case of Rome by certain
regions in the vicinity long specially held to the duty of supplying in "praediis,
quae jam-dudum praestationi calcis coeperunt obnoxio adtineri". These lands
were in Etruria and Campania. Not more than 3000 smaller cartloads (minores vehes)
are to be demanded annually says Valentinian in 365, but since we have no information
about the number of limeburners the information does not help in ascertaining how much
work was required of either the limeburners or waggoners. The law further lays down
"that the distribution principle of the transport is to be the following: 1500
cartloads to be delivered annually for the aqueducts (formis) and the other 1500 for the
repairing of the public buildings.
The collection of the lime was evidently performed by the curiales of
the municipalities; Valentinian's law of 365 speaks of the curiales of Tuscany being
excused the 900 cartloads which they had formerly been required to furnish yearly,
provided that when necessity arose, that is when new works or repairs were needed, they
themselves reported the fact to the authorities (presumably the prefect of Rome) with
suggestions as to how much was required.
It cannot be seen whether the 900 cartloads from Tuscany are part of
the 3000 total mentioned previously. Presumably they were, as the decree goes on to
say that from the above mentioned number of cartloads, half is to be used for repair of
public buildings and the other half to be written down separately in order that the
prefect of the City shall realise that the responsibility of the repairs rests with him.
The important point to notice is that the limeburners did not
themselves collect the lime from the landowners who had to supply it; they were supplied
by the curiales who did the collecting. the limeburners burnt it and handed it over
to the Vectuarii to transport it to the Capital.
The only duty of the limeburners was therefore to burn the lime
supplied to them.
PRIVILEGES AND PAYMENT
The calcis coctores had a monopoly of limeburning in the
environs of Rome; or, at any rate, no one else could supply the government with the lime
it needed, and punishments were threatened against governors or officials who burnt it
themselves "its ut nulli judicum seu officiorum exeoquendae calcis licentie
relinquatur, sub eo statuto, ut qui, in hac usurpetione fuerit, susteritatem vigoris
publici ferre cognatur".
In 364 Valentinian confirmed the privileges "of those who are held
to the duty of cooking lime" and of the vectores, but does not mention what they
were. They were presumably the same as those of the other collegia who served the
needs of Rome.
About the payments made to both collegia there is definite information.
Those were as usual in kind.
First under Constantius the limeburners were paid one amphora of wine
per 3 cartloads of lime and vecturarii one amphora per each 2,900 lbs. of lime
carried to Rome. The vectuarii, were furthermore given three hundred oxen but this
was naturally only special measure to help them, and would not be repeated each year.
It is to be noted that these supplies of wine and oxen, from which the limeburners
and carriers were paid, were furnished by the same lands which supplied the limestone.
The government itself did not pay them from its ordinary resources.
In 365 Valentinian "desiring to restore the 'status' of the
eternal city and to provide for the dignity of the public walls" raised the
"wages" of the limeburners and carriers. Both are henceforth to receive
one solidus for each cartload in place of the wone formerly given to them.
Three-fourths of the sum necessary for this is to be supplied by the possessores and one
quarter is to be assumed as the price of the wine which it has been customary to give out
of the "area vineria". This must mean that the "possessores" are
still to go on supplying the wine as before and in addition are to pay twice 3/4 of a
solidus, i.e. 1-1/2 solidi for every cartload transported. For presumably the
decree means that the limeburners and carriers are each to receive a solidus; this,
however, is not certain, for the terms micht mean this, or, might mean one solidus between
them. The words used are "ut calcis coctoribus vectoribusque per singulas vehes
singuli solidi praebeantur".
The lime supplied was to be strictly applied to the purpose for which
it was furnished, that is for "the needs of all the public buildings and structures
of Rome. No individual is to demand any of it even if armed with an order from the
Emperor, unless it should be found that the amount supplied is in excess of the needs of
the public buildings.
I have referred to the fact that one decree in the series refers to the
limeburners at Constantinople though only indirectly. In 419 Theodosius II
ordered all the furneses "in all the space which extends along the seashore, between
the amphitheatre and the gate of the divine Julius, to be removed on account of the health
of the broad city (i.e., Constantinople)" and the neighbourhood of the Emperor's
palace. Permission is to be given to no one to burn lime in these places.
This decree shows that at Constantinople the limestone was burnt
in the city and so there was probably no collegium of vectuarii in the new Capital.
The limeburners may be supposed to have moved just outside the city after this
decree. The smoke of their furnaces then no longer dirtied the city buildings or
offended the delicate nostrils of the Emperor and his household.
This law shows that the work of a limeburner was far from pleasant; but
there are no special laws dealing with his hereditary status and his obligation to burn
lime. Perhaps being paid in wine he remained more contented than the workers in
other trades.
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